Company’s Partnership with U. S. Air Force Focused on New Intermediate- and Large-Class Space Launch Vehicles

New Launchers to Use Company’s Industry-Leading Solid Rocket Propulsion Technology and Other Modular Elements

Dulles, Virginia 3 April 2017 – Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, today announced that it has made important progress over the past 18 months in developing advanced solid rocket propulsion and other technologies to be used in a new generation of intermediate- and large-class space launch vehicles. Through a combination of internal investment and government funding from an Air Force contract awarded in late 2015 by the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Launch Systems Directorate, the company’s Flight Systems Group recently completed design reviews, facility upgrades and tooling fabrication, and has now begun early production of development hardware for its Next Generation Launch (NGL) system.

The company’s modular NGL rocket family will be capable of launching a wide variety of national security payloads, as well as science and commercial satellites that are too large to be launched by its current fleet of Pegasus, Minotaur and Antares space launch vehicles. The NGL vehicles will operate from both east and west coast launch facilities and will share common propulsion, structures and avionics systems with other company programs, including its smaller space launch vehicles as well as missile defense interceptors, target vehicles and strategic missile systems.

“The NGL program is a great example of how industry and government can work together to develop an American launch system to support national security space launch requirements,” said Scott Lehr, President of Orbital ATK’s Flight Systems Group. “Orbital ATK is well-positioned to introduce an intermediate- and large-class family of launch vehicles by leveraging the strengths of the merged company to achieve low-cost assured space access for current and future national security payloads and other satellites.”

Through commonality of hardware and other economies of scale, Orbital ATK’s proposed launch system will also reduce the cost of other U.S. Government rocket and missile programs managed by the Air Force, Navy, NASA and Missile Defense Agency, saving taxpayers up to $600 million on these programs over a ten-year period.

Over the past 18 months, Orbital ATK has successfully completed critical design reviews for major elements of the company’s solid propulsion stages, along with preliminary vehicle-level and launch site infrastructure reviews. The company has also refurbished a 60,000-square-foot production building, including installation of automated tooling, cranes and other equipment to enable the manufacture of large-diameter composite-case rocket motors. Recently, the company completed the manufacturing of prototype motor test articles to be used in verification activities this summer.

“The Orbital ATK NGL team, which now numbers several hundred engineers and technicians, has made tremendous progress since late 2015. Building on this work, we are looking forward to providing the Air Force and other customers with a highly-reliable and cost-effective launch system within the next four years,” said Lehr.

The next phase of the program is expected to commence when the Air Force awards Launch Services Agreements in early 2018, which would entail full vehicle and launch site development, with work taking place at company facilities in Promontory and Magna, Utah; Iuka, Mississippi; Chandler, Arizona; and Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

About Orbital ATK

Orbital ATK is a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies. The company designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation systems for customers around the world, both as a prime contractor and merchant supplier. Its main products include launch vehicles and related propulsion systems; missile products, subsystems and defense electronics; precision weapons, armament systems and ammunition; satellites and associated space components and services; and advanced aerospace structures. Headquartered in Dulles, Virginia, Orbital ATK employs approximately 12,500 people in 18 states across the U.S. and in several international locations. For more information, visit www.orbitalatk.com.

Attached is also OA's NGL fact sheet.

Edits will be made to this post as more information becomes available.

Neat, bigger than DIVH then it looks like (for the XL version). Not a big fan of expendable solids, but maybe this could be a good stopgap for the next few years until reuse becomes a requirement for competitiveness

At these sizes, probably makes more sense to design a totally new PCM (ATV/MPLM sized?). More mass efficient per volume, and at a certain point lengthening it more will probably cause SSRMS reach issues since the grapple fixtures are on the SM.

Really curious what the LEO payload would be - not the intended market I know but still.

It's usually between 2.5X~3X GTO performance. So this should be somewhere between 15 and 25 tonnes. The big uncertainty is due to the GTO undertainty. But yes, a 4.2m diameter evolution of the Cygnus could very well do up to something equivalent to the ATV performance (~20tonnes of cargo).

Really curious what the LEO payload would be - not the intended market I know but still.

It's usually between 2.5X~3X GTO performance. So this should be somewhere between 15 and 25 tonnes. The big uncertainty is due to the GTO undertainty. But yes, a 4.2m diameter evolution of the Cygnus could very well do up to something equivalent to the ATV performance (~20tonnes of cargo).

That is for the 500 series though right?

For the 500XL series, comparing the relative performance of Detla IV Heavy to GTO (14,700kg) & GEO performance (6750kg) & a taking WAG from the 7000kg max to GEO to approximate LEO performance would estimate from 35,000 kg to 44,000 kg. That's a lot more than the Delta IV heavy, but from my understanding the single RL-10 is really limited for LEO by gravity losses? The BE-3U with over 4x the trust of an RL-10 should have a lot better performance there.

I am also highly interested in the LEO and DRO payloads. I would love to see an set of trades on an OATK Deep Space Gateway.

Course i'd also like to see trades on an "All of the above" Commercial DSG.

AIUI, TLI is less than GEO. For example, DIVH does 6.75 tonnes to GEO but 10.57 to TLI (C3=-2km˛/s˛). Atlas V 551 does 3.9 and 6.3 respectively. Thus, a 500XL should do anywhere between 8.4 and 10.8 tonnes to TLI. The payload would then need propellant to move from and away from the DRO. So a 500XL could very comfortably enable SuperCygnus cargo to DRO.

Orbital ATK’s business case requires five or six launches of the rocket per year for the military, NASA, or commercial customers, he said.

uh. that's worse than I thought.

I figured the selling point for this project was going to be viability at a glacial launch rate. Like 2 or 3 launches per year.

My thoughts exactly. Given that the capacity of all those new/existing launch systems far exceeds the long-term capacity predictions I don't see NGL progressing significantly beyond the Powerpoint-and-models stage.